Assad and his brother Maher have fled Syria and will be tried in absentia, but one of their relatives, former security official Atif Najib, was in the dock in handcuffs.

“Today we begin the first trials of transitional justice in Syria,” judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan declared as he opened the session.

“This includes a defendant in custody, present in the dock, as well as defendants who have fled justice,” he said.

A judicial source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the proceedings marked the beginning of preparations for the trials of Assad, his brother and other prominent figures like Najib.

Najib, who was arrested in January 2025 in the aftermath of the collapse of the Assad government, appeared in court in Damascus in a striped prison jersey.

He previously headed Syria’s political security branch in the southern province of Daraa, where Syria’s 2011 uprising first erupted.

He is accused of leading a broad campaign of repression and arrests there.

Syria’s 13-year civil war killed more than half a million people and displaced millions of others.

Assad’s forces pounded rebel-held areas, including with airstrikes and crude barrel bomb attacks, while tens of thousands of people disappeared, some into the country’s brutal prison system.

Assad fled to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024, ending more than five decades of his family dynasty’s rule.

The judge did not question Najib during Sunday’s session, which was dedicated to “preparatory administrative and legal procedures”, and announced that a second hearing would be held on May 10.

The judicial source said in-person trials will include Wassim al-Assad, another relative of the ousted president, former grand mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, as well as military and security officials arrested by the new authorities in recent months.

Syria’s new authorities have repeatedly vowed to provide justice and accountability for Assad-era atrocities.